Guess what? Some of them are clapping too. It’s worth noting that many conservatives are actually in favor of gay marriage. Some say, “It doesn’t affect me. I can still marry whoever I want to. So, why would I be against it?” And, wonder of wonders, some gays are actually also conservatives. It’s not strictly a party issue.

“I think the great disappointment…is that this was a really, in some ways, a conservative argument. This was a minority group seeking responsibility, commitment, pooling resources. If you’re a couple and something happens to one of you, you have someone else to take care of you, not the government. There’s a really powerful conservative case for this. And so many of the Republican Party just never grappled with it until it was too late,” Sullivan continued.

Now we even see openly gay Republicans in politics and government. Ken Mehlman, former chairman of the Rebublican National Committee, has been out as openly gay since 2010. Mehlman is now a private equity executive for KKR in Manhattan, and is waging a different sort of campaign. He is trying to convince other Republicans that gay marriage is consistent with conservative values and good for their party.

As times have changed, so too has the way in which gays are viewed in the media and politics. Because they are being viewed in a much more favorable light, maybe more people feel free to come out. The more that happens, the more conservatives realize that they know some gay people. Once they get over classifying gays as “others,” the more likely they are to begin to support gay marriage.